http://astroprofspage.com Rambling through space ... Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:10:36 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Yesterday, December 21, was the Winter Solstice here in the northern hemisphere.  On that day, the Earth was in the part of its orbit where its north pole was tilted as far away from the Sun as it will get this year.  The Sun appeared as far south in the ... http://astroprofspage.com/archives/2039 I do several public star parties each year.  Overall, it probably amounts to a little more than one every two months.  Typically, I give a public talk about some topic in astronomy, and then we do viewing through telescopes that I bring.  Usually, there are a few amateur astronomers who ... http://astroprofspage.com/archives/2037 According to a report on Science Daily, the Large Hadron Collider has set a new energy record.  The twin beams were at an energy of 1.18 TeV, beating the 0.98 TeV energy of Fermilab's Tevatron.  That now makes the LHC the worlds most energetic particle collider.  Despite all of the ... http://astroprofspage.com/archives/2035 I've been busy catching up on my classes, so I haven't posted anything lately.  But, you can catch up on lots of great space-related blog posts at the 128th Carnival of Space, being hosted this week at the AARTScope Blog. -Astroprof http://astroprofspage.com/archives/2033 It's been a week since the Ares I-X launch, so you are probably wondering where the pictures are.  After the launch, I tried to clean up as best I could in the bathroom at the space center, and I headed straight to the airport to catch my plane back to ... http://astroprofspage.com/archives/2028 Well, the launch did not go as hoped for this morning.  Last night, the forecast was for only about a 40% chance of the launch getting off.  This morning, when I got up to head over to the space center, I saw stars!  Things were definitely looking good!  Then, as ... http://astroprofspage.com/archives/2025 If everything works out OK, then NASA will launch a new rocket this coming Tuesday:  the Ares I-X.  And, if everything works right, I'll be there to witness it! The Ares rockets and Orion crew module are supposed to eventually replace the Space Shuttle in NASA's inventory of craft to ferry ... http://astroprofspage.com/archives/2023 Clearly carrying heavy shielding to protect astronauts from radiation in space is expensive.  If you havent' been reading my space radiation series as I've been posting, then you can look over the last several of my postings about space radiation to see some of the problems.  So, some other strategy ... http://astroprofspage.com/archives/2021 As I continue my series on space radiation, the next topic that I want to address is how radiation harms space travelers.  I've already alluded to this in earlier posts in the series, but I wanted to mention it again. In an earlier installment, I said that radiation is a process ... http://astroprofspage.com/archives/2019 Part 3 of my series on space radiation is about the radiation itself.  The term cosmic rays is generally used to describe this radiation.  Unfortunately, as often happens, the term evolved before the nature of the phenomenon being studied was known, so it may not be the best term to ... http://astroprofspage.com/archives/2017